Providence

Examples of Providence

Dt 28:2-13 All these blessings will be yours if you obey. Whether in city or country, you will be blessed. Fruitfulness and bounty will be your lot. In your travels you will be blessed, and no enemy that comes against you will succeed, for the LORD will cause their defeat. The LORD will command these blessings upon you and your lands, which HE gives you. HE will establish you as a holy people, if you will keep His commands. Thus will the nations see that you are called by the LORD's name, and fear you. HE will prosper you abundantly in the land HE swore to give to you. HE will open the storehouses of heaven to bless your lands with seasonal rains, and to bless the works of your hands. You shall lend to nations, but not borrow. You shall lead and not follow, you shall be the premier people of the earth if you obey the LORD your GOD carefully.
Dt 29:5 I have led you for forty years in the wilderness, yet your clothes haven't worn out, nor have your sandals.
Dt 30:15-20 I have shown you the choice: abundant life, or death and adversity. I command you to love your LORD GOD and obey, that you may live and multiply, that HE may bless you in the land. But if you turn away to idolatry, I tell you that you will surely die. Your days in the land will be short. Heaven and earth are witness that I have given you this choice: life or death, blessing or curse. So choose life, by loving GOD and obeying. Hold fast to Him for this is your life.
Dt 32:11-14 Like an eagle over its young, the LORD spread His wings over them, carrying them on His pinions. HE alone guided them. HE caused them to ride high, eating from the fields, sucking honey from the rocks, and oil from flint. They were fed from fattened stock, from finest wheat, and with wine from fine grapes.
Dt 32:47 This is no idle message. It is your life. By this word you will live long in the land you are about to possess.
Jos 1:8 This law shall not leave your mouth, but shall be your constant meditation, so that you may carefully do as it requires. In this, you will prosper and succeed.
Ruth 1:6 She started her return from Moab, because she had heard that the LORD had visited His people with food.
1Sa 2:7-8 The LORD makes poor and rich. He both humbles and exalts. HE lifts up the poor and seats them among nobles in seats of honor. For the pillars of the earth are His, and HE sets the world upon them.
2Sa 7:8-9, 1Ch 17:7-8 I took you from the pasture to rule My people. I have been with you throughout, and cut off your enemies before you. I will make you one of the great men of the earth.
1Ki 2:3-4 Keep the LORD's commands, that you may succeed in all things. Then, HE may do all HE has promised me. For HE declared that if my sons would obey Him, we should always occupy the throne.
1Ki 9:4-5 If, like David, you walk in integrity, doing all I have commanded, then I will establish your throne forever, as I promised David your father.
1Ch 22:9-10 A son will be born to you, a man of rest who shall have rest from all his enemies. His name shall be Solomon, and in his day I shall give peace and quiet to Israel. He shall build My house. He shall be My son and I, his father, and I will establish his throne forever.

New Thoughts

This is no idle message, this is life! The LORD is visiting His people with food! Good and abundant food. He has opened the storehouses of heaven to pour out provision upon you. And what does HE ask in return? Loving obedience so that HE may justly continue to bless you. He asks that you choose life, that He may give life.

The LORD has made you what you are, and HE will also make you what you will be. It is in His hands to determine - humbling or exalting, which will serve His child best? Thus it shall be done. If it is to be established, HE will establish it.

We have made much of the pillar of late in our church, and here it is again in 1Sa 2:8. His are the pillars of the earth, and He sets the earth upon them. We are being called to serve as pillars. In this, we are being called to hold up the world. Elsewhere, I have learned that the pillars also refer to faithfulness, representing the means by which the gates remain open.

The gates are open. God is visiting His people. And He is calling His people to stand as faithful pillars, that the gates may remain open. He is seeking to pour out such abundance that it will overflow from His Church to the world - the river of the temple seen in Ezekiel's vision. The pillars must hold. They - we - must hold firm in our prayers and our lives, that the gates may remain open until the whole blessing is poured out. We must hold firm in our prayers for this world, holding it up before our God, that He may find mercy on them and save them. He has made us His pillars - the pillars of the world. He has set the world upon us. Let us be faithful to do our duty as His pillars, His chosen means of support, His children of peace.